P.S. Christina is the acknowledged master at teaching people how to use Wordpress. If you're a do-it-yourselfer or professional who needs to understand how your site is built and managed, then please join us on March 10!

I'm constantly exhorting business owners and service professionals to use a business blog as a marketing tool. Some eagerly jump on board, others are reluctant or downright hostile to the idea.

Of course, if you do make the leap into the blogosphere, you've got to have a plan and more importantly you've got to know why you're blogging. In addition to connecting with amazing people, building a community and sharing my expertise, these are a few of the reasons I blog...I suspect there are as many reasons to blog as there are bloggers.

This month marks the 5th anniversary of the TypePad blogging platform, owned by Six Apart. As many readers know, The Blog Squad's blogging odyssey began in September 2004. You can read my account of our story here.

TypePad is sharing blogging success stories on their anniversary page. There are many inspiring tales about how blogging has changed the lives and businesses of many, many people. If you're a TypePad blogger, be sure to submit your story. You never know, you may be featured on TypePad's site!

Enter it. It's a great exercise in concise, useful blog writing. Share a tip you have about blogging. Remember, it can only be 140 characters so you really have to think about what you want to convey.

With 77 entries at the time of this post, there are some excellent bite-size blogging tips you can learn from.

Let us know if you enter the contest and feel free to post your blogging tip here as well in the comments section. The contest closes Monday, 1/14 at noon Australia time. You'll have to check what time that is for you.

By the way, here's my tip:

Use photos in your blog posts to illustrate your point. Images attract attention and like they say, a picture is worth 1000 words.

English and Japanese remain the two most popular languages in the blogosphere

There is a strong correlation between the aging and post frequency of blogs and their authority and Technorati ranking ("a-list" bloggers tend to post at least twice a day and therefore have more "authority" on Technorati

UPDATE: Just read a post on Tris Hussey's blog, A View from the Isle, that goes into the aspect of Technorati authority. He understands and explains it way better than I can. The bottom line is post and link frequently.

While Robert French blogs and receives concrete benefits, he insists "everything being done these days with social media is still an experiment, " and I agree. Robert teaches at Auburn University and uses blogs and other social media for several purposes, including to communicate with his students and help them build online portfolios which help them stand out in the job-search process.

"It's all still so new," he rightfully proclaims. The blog explosion is still very young. Although we have plenty of examples of what works in specific situations, no one has found what works across all implementations. Maybe in 5 years we'll have some concrete data we can draw overall conclusions from.

Many early adopters are passionate and evangelistic, but lose perspective. There is too much "everyone must blog" mentality.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with a couple of fellow bloggers. We met in Beverly Hills for an Italian lunch.

What a lucky gal I was to dine with two handsome men: Rohit Bhargava of Influential Interactive Marketing and Ogilvy PR, and John Trosko (also a client) author of the popular blog, OrganizingLA. It was an hour and a half of blog talk. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I could not commemorate the moment with a photo. Seems that's a weakness of mine...forgetting my camera.

This is what I love about the blogosphere: virtual online colleagues can become real, living breathing colleagues leading to great meals, great discussions and possible partnerships. That's not to say that I have a partnership in the works with Ogilvy, but you get the idea. You never know what can happen when you meet your fellow bloggers in person.